Pictures of the Future    Spring 2007

Working Smart

Siemens’new Beijing headquarters. Equipped with state-of-the-art building systems, the 30 story tower uses about one-third less energy than comparable Chinese office buildings

Whenever Taiwan architects C.Y. Lee & Partners step up to the drawing board, the result is a building destined to create a stir. It could be a hall shaped like a bronze vessel, an office building in the form of an ancient coin—or the postmodern, pagoda-like Taipei 101, at 509 m the world’s tallest building (see Tower of Superlatives in Pictures of the Future, Fall 2005). And now the star designers are about to create yet another landmark: Siemens’ new China headquarters, a 30-story glass tower in Beijing, which will be ready for occupancy by 3,000 employees in early 2008. Behind the transparent facade, often hidden from view, is the technology that can provide Beijing with a way out of its basic dilemma—the apparent contradiction between environmental protection and economic efficiency, between limited space and quality of life.

In addition to featuring good insulation, energy-efficient equipment and well-designed workstations, the building also boasts an intelligent management system that centrally regulates many of its services, including fire and security alarms, water supply, lighting and air conditioning. "That makes it extremely economical to operate, as well as very convenient for employees," explains Jürgen Reimann, an architect and head of SRE DPS, Siemens’ Chinese real estate subsidiary.

The building’s control system will receive data from about 3,000 sensors, automatically lowering and raising the blinds, adjusting the air conditioning to the climate and brightening or dimming the lights according to the time of day. What’s more, offices can be regulated on an individual basis. The sunny side of the building is heated less than the shady one, and the amount of light coming through the windows is adjusted to eliminate disturbing glare. One by one, the lights come on in the evening—and go off again after office hours. If people work late, motion detectors sense which desks are in use and adjust services accordingly.

"The building requires much less energy than comparable structures in China," explains Toni Brania of Turner & Townsend, a UK-based project management company that is coordinating the construction project. Indeed, the building uses about one-third less energy per unit of floor space than conventional Chinese office buildings. "With the price of electricity rising all the time in China, efficiency is an increasingly significant cost factor," says Brania. And the same applies to water, which is why there is continuous monitoring of the water used in individual washrooms. Should a cistern develop a leak, the system immediately reports it. The building also features several water systems, with wastewater being filtered and reused for lavatory cisterns or cooling water.

Learning to Conserve. "These approaches are new for China," explains Yan Shaobin, project manager at general contractor CITIC. "We’ve learned a lot on this job." The building systems are state-of-the-art as well. "There’s growing awareness in China that high environmental standards are a necessity, not a luxury," says Reimann. Environmental problems are now seen as the biggest threat to economic growth. Today, 700 million Chinese are still without clean drinking water, and 58 % of the rivers here are so polluted that they can be ruled out for this purpose. What’s more, the water table is falling rapidly in about 400 cities. Of the 20 places with the poorest air quality in the world, 16 are in China. According to government figures, pollution is responsible for approximately 400,000 fatalities per year, and environmental damage costs the economy an estimated at 150 bill. € annually, around 10 % of GDP—the equivalent of the current rate of economic growth. "If things continue this way, China will become poor again before it has a chance to enjoy prosperity," warns Pan Yue, Deputy Minister at the State Environmental Protection Administration. "We pride ourselves on being ‘the workbench of the world,’ but if we’re not careful, we’ll end up being the biggest garbage dump on the planet."

Given these challenges, China needs not only more effective laws and greater environmental awareness, but also knowledge of what can be achieved with advanced technology. "Some developments in power engineering just can’t be used here; the right conditions are lacking," Reimann notes. For example, Siemens studied the economic viability of installing its own cogeneration power plant for the company’s Beijing headquarters. Yet the idea was rejected because in China there is still no way to feed excess power into the public grid. Nor is geothermal energy an option, because the needed geological and geohydrological analyses have yet to be carried out.

"Nevertheless, the country is making tremendous progress," adds Reimann, who manages construction projects for Siemens in China with an investment volume of about 250 mill. €.

Siemens is also busy in Shanghai, where a new company building is under construction. With 45,000 m² of office space, it won’t be much smaller than the 54,000-m² Beijing headquarters. And from a technical and design viewpoint, the two are equally impressive structures. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. The Shanghai building was designed by architects Gerkan, Marg and Partner of Hamburg, responsible most recently for the spectacular new Berlin Central Station.
                                                                                                             Bernhard Bartsch